At Great Cost

Back in the early 1930's, another president had a word for the honor society that has run off with our savings, and stock options: "banksters," that's what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called them.

I'm sure Roosevelt would have a thing or two to say about those in public service nowadays who have betrayed the public trust, and figured out a way to immunize themselves in the process, a kind of corruption that would inspire a Shakespearean tragedy.

But, the trick is to connect the dots, and recognize that the difficulties of our financial market are inextricably bound to the disintegration of the social, political, and moral fabric of our society. So far, none of the candidates for president is doing this.

"We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer," Franklin Delano Roosevelt said.

President Roosevelt was right. America is an experiment in democracy that was hijacked by a gang of free market capitalists whose ultimate intention was to institute a monarchy of means, a hierarchy of income, and a class system unparalleled since feudal times. In this, they have succeeded, at great cost to us all and, ultimately, to themselves, too.